Wrestling Wrap Up: Brock Lesnar Destroys CM Punk

Man. So not only was RAW superb last night, with tons of headline-worthy surprises and stories, but it managed to do it all WITHOUT the help of the Carl's Jr/Hardee's Bacon Cheeseburger!*

*srsly tho, where was that burger?

"Somehow I don&#Array;t feel like making a tag team match today..."

My old favorite thing about that burger was how much people marveled at its ingenious mold-breaking pairing of meat, cheese, and more meat. My new favorite thing about that burger, which was last seen on Smackdown, is that no one on the WWE roster has the ability to get a second one. It's as if everyone has been allotted one bacon cheeseburger and if it's somehow ruined, or you're forced to share it, that's it. There's no more for you. Rationing's tight. These things are limited editions. Only a few are rolling off the assembly line.

Also, Cole had to drive home the fact that "You know, you get bacon in every bite." God, we're fat.

Aaanyhow. How about that freakin' amazing RAW? I mean, one of the reasons there was hardly any burger, shake, or app chatter was because the whole show was filled up with story. I know, right? What a concept. And I have to talk a little about Payback here, which I watched yesterday morning, because it's what really set the stage for last night. Payback was pretty damn good. The Punk/Jericho match took a while to get going, with the announce team actually calling out the fact that Punk seemed easily winded early on. But, of course, it picked up steam and wound up closing the gaps at the end. Also, what a way to go with the Del Rio/Ziggler story, huh? They had a "Stone Cold/Bret Hart-style body-switch in one night" match and it was really cool. I know we're all bummed that Ziggler lost the gold, but the story that was told was excellent. Also, this gives Dolph more of a chance to perhaps connect with the crowd more than just with his athletic prowess. But I'll try to talk a bit more about this in a page or two.

Um...

Punk came back, in Chicago, as a face. And then last night, he told Heyman that he didn't need him to cheat for him. Which is true mostly. During the whole time Heyman was with Punk, he barely, rarely cheated for him. Not like he did for Brock at Extreme Rules. I think, at Elimination Chamber, they tried to do something hinky with The Rock, when Punk tried to wallop him with the title belt, but that's it. No, the cheating on Punk's behalf always came in the form of The Shield. Who, I guess, Heyman had been paying off. So Punk told Paul to stay in the back from now on, and then Brock came out and F-5'd Punk at the end of the show. The mystery will now be "Did Heyman send him?" The answer is, naturally, "F*** yeah, he did!" but it'll take a while to get there since Punk and Brock aren't scheduled to face each other until SummerSlam.

If only he could...reach the mic. The...source of his power...

So with Punk breaking up with Paul, and D-Bryan breaking up with Kane, last night's RAW had a very emotional "end of summer" feeling to it. Camp buddies now had to go back to school. Bromances came to an end. Del Rio even broke up with America. And Zeb Colter, now having no Mexican good guy to target, had to break up with his entire gimmick.

With swiggety Swagger out dealing with his hand injury, and his DUI/possession charges, Zeb's now backing Cesaro, who's America-hating "very euro" gimmick should be the bane of Zeb's existence. But it turns out that Zeb really has no agenda other than "I love a**holes." Whatever. At least this'll prevent Cesaro from getting jobber entrances for a while. And it'll all be worth it if he can somehow convince Zeb to start carrying a giant Swiss man-purse. You know, for all of his mustache-care products.

Meanwhile, the Daniel Bryan story has taken a few interesting turns, and while he still looks to be in line to face Cena at SummerSlam, he's become entangled in the Vince vs. Triple H angle. First, backtracking, let's talk about the big tap out win Bryan got on Smackdown when he, Kane and Orton definitively beat The Shield in six-man tag team action. The Shield's first big, clean loss. On Smackdown. I know. Weird. But it was also wonderful. In fact, since it happened on Smackdown, I wondered if they'd repeat the match and the outcome on RAW, since that's what usually happens. But they moved past it fast and put Bryan in a story where he's pissed at Triple H for making the doctors stop his match against Orton - while Vince made it known backstage that he was never a fan of Kane's. So while it might seem that Bryan might be in line to win a briefcase at MITB, there's also a chance that he'll have a match with Kane, where Triple H is in Kane's corner and Vince is in his. Which would also be a way for him to get a shot at Cena at SummerSlam, without a briefcase.

Especially since there's a very high (GET IT!?) likelihood that RVD will win the briefcase. That's right, RAW was so good last night that the return of RVD to the WWE, after six years, it almost an afterthought.

The strangest part of The Shield's loss on Smackdown was the way the winners were announced afterward. Lilian actually said "For the first time in six-man tag team action, The Shield has been defeated!" It's as if they didn't trust the crowd on hand, who popped huge for the win, to know the history or story. I've just never heard the ring announcer blatantly announce who lost the match first. Or at all. "Ladies and gentlemen, Randy Savage has just lost the WWF Championship! Who lost? That's right. Randy Savage! You heard me. There was a winner here tonight and it definitely wasn't Randy Savage. Drive safe."